BRUSSELS: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg headed for Washington on Monday for the first time since US President Donald Trump was elected, holding talks with senior officials about defeating Daesh, his office said.
Stoltenberg will meet US Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday, then meet foreign ministers from the US-led coalition working to defeat Daesh, his office said in a statement.
He will also hold a series of unspecified meetings during the visit beginning later Monday and ending Tuesday, it added.
During a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels last month, US Vice President Mike Pence said Trump expects NATO allies to make real progress by the end of this year toward meeting the increased defense spending target agreed by the alliance.
The transatlantic alliance set a goal in 2014 of raising defense spending to two percent of GDP over a decade.
So far, of the 28 NATO members, only the US, Britain, Poland, Greece and Estonia have met the two percent target.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel has underlined Germany’s rejection of a claim by President Trump that it owes NATO large sums for underspending on defense. She has pointed to a history of decades of post-World War II military restraint.
Trump tweeted on Saturday that “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO.” Germany is short of a NATO target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, with the figure currently at 1.23 percent.
Merkel said on Monday that defense spending is “not just about contributions to NATO, but also about European contributions in Africa for example, UN missions.” She added: “Not a single NATO member state pays its entire defense budget into NATO.”
Merkel said that defense spending “cannot be uncoupled from historical developments from one day to the next.”
NATO chief to discuss anti-Daesh strategy in Washington talks
NATO chief to discuss anti-Daesh strategy in Washington talks
Italy says it can reactivate coal-powered plants if Gulf crisis worsens
- Fratin said Italy has “coal-powered stations that I wouldn’t like to re-activate but they are there in reserve to safeguard our country“
- Italy has a diversified portfolio of gas suppliers, which include Norway, Algeria and Azerbaijan
ROME: Italy’s energy minister said on Wednesday that the country can reactivate some coal-fired power stations if conflict in the Middle East should lead to an energy crisis.
Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said in a television interview that Italy has “coal-powered stations that I wouldn’t like to re-activate but they are there in reserve to safeguard our country.”
Israeli and US forces struck targets across Iran on Tuesday, prompting Iranian strikes against energy infrastructure in other Gulf states considered US allies, in a region that accounts for just under a third of global oil production.
Iran has also targeted tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows. Traffic remained effectively closed for a fourth day after Iran attacked five ships.
Italy has a diversified portfolio of gas suppliers, which include Norway, Algeria and Azerbaijan among others.
In addition the country’s quantities of gas storage are at relatively high levels.
“On the (energy) security front, our country is ... quite safe quantitatively,” Pichetto Fratin said.
“We have the highest storage levels in Europe, we have diversified sources, and therefore we can say there is not an extremely severe situation regarding the quantities of resources, and I am speaking mainly about gas,” he added.
